Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 73

"You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.

Be Be all that you can be! Or so we're urged by ad agencies. They want us to be different than what we are – but not so much as to make a difference. 

Clearly God thinks differently about his people. Born of the Jewish heritage and descendants of Abraham Our Father in Faith, we are meant to be a blessing to the nations. Our being here can cheer up the depressed, console the sorrowing, heal the sick, forgive sins, and reconcile enemies. Wherever we go we carry the fresh, lively scent of the Garden of Eden because we have been in Bethlehem when Jesus was born, in Nazareth as he grew up, and on the road as he spoke to us. We were with him as he died on Calvary, and he appeared to us on Easter Sunday, and many times since then. We have dual citizenship; we belong here but we are destined for eternal bliss in heaven. We died with him in Baptism and were raised up again in the Eucharist. We are different and we make a difference. We are, as Jesus says, the salt of the earth. 

But, because our being the salt of the earth is so important, he must remind us that useless "salt" will be thrown out. Sometimes, in our eager desire to be accepted as God’s good, friendly, nice people, we mistake the sugar of friendliness for the salt of repentance. We forget the Lord’s first word to us, “Repent of your sins and believe the Good News.”” Unless they recognize and despise their sins no one can hear the Good News. And so the food we offer is insipid, that is, tasteless. 

In today's gospel the Lord tells us, "You are the light of the world." That message takes us back to Sunday, two weeks ago, 

“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,

the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,

Galilee of the Gentiles,

the people who sit in darkness

have seen a great light,

on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death

light has arisen."

The regions of Zebulun and Naphthali were lost to the light of faith when the Neo-Assyrian Empire overran the northern kingdom of Israel in the eighth century before Christ. They forced most of the native Israelites off the land God had given them; and then forced aliens to occupy, intermarry with the survivors, and take possession of the homes the Israelites had built, the orchards they had planted, and the fields they had cultivated. Although they worshiped the God of Israel, the people of Judah and Jerusalem regarded them as worse than gentiles.  

However, the Prophet Isaiah prophesied that the Samaritans who dwelt in a land overshadowed by death would someday see a "great light." Matthew saw that prophecy fulfilled when Jesus announced the Kingdom of God, called people to repentance, and healed their sick. 

And so, when Jesus says, "You are the light of the world!" we recognize our calling and responsibility to be and bring the light of Christ to the world. That is, to wherever we live and to whomever we meet. 

Faith was never simply a matter of having correct opinions about God; it always entails the obligation of being different and making a difference. The Old and New Testaments tell us that. “We are a people peculiarly his own. (1 Peter 2:9 & Deuteronomy 7:6). And “We are strangers in a strange land.” (Genesis 15:13, Leviticus 19:33-34, Hebrews 11:9, and 1 Peter 2:11) 

Jesus did not rise from the dead to prove there is an afterlife, or even to promise us eternal life. Rather, he rose to send us on our way. As he said moments before he ascended into heaven,  

"...you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

We cannot fail; we must not fail. Failure to be salt and light, that is to live by our faith in Jesus, renders us somewhere between insipid and disgusting,

"good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot."

We do not pretend to know, love, and serve God. We must do those things in fact, without pretense or playacting or publicity. The Word of God is a seed which has spread its roots deep in our hearts and changed them. Just as the body of a pregnant woman is altered by the presence of a child within her womb, the Word of God changes, adapts, and conforms us to the will of God. If we ever thought we were our own people, and doing our own thing — which, of course, was never true because at that time we belonged to Satan – the word of God has taken possession of us. It molds and changes us into something as useful as salt, and as beautiful as light.